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Indian pollution, made in Germany

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Omair Ahmad
Omair AhmadJul 01, 2016 | 14:27

Indian pollution, made in Germany

I worked with a German organisation for almost six years, and during that time, made numerous visits to the country. One of the things that most impressed me was how this industrial giant, famed for its technical skills, had managed to boost the share of renewable energy in its mix. More than 27 per cent of Germany's electricity now comes from renewable energy. This is a rise from just about 9 per cent in ten years, a phenomenal turnaround.

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India aims to raise its renewable energy generation up to 40 per cent of its own energy mix by 2040, and unlike Germany, it has to expand its energy base massively. To do this, we need partners, and it seems like Germany's industry would be an ideal one.

So when we bought a car a few years back, I was pleased that we were able to pick up a German make - a Skoda, to be precise, a Czech design owned by Volkswagen. Other than the engineering, we thought it would also be a cleaner car - abiding by the more difficult standards set by Germany and the European Union.

Imagine my surprise, then, when I took the car in for a routine pollution check, and was told that it had failed. It had been only a month after the normal servicing, so that added to my surprise. My wife took the car - it is actually hers, and thus quite well cared for - to another pollution check centre, and that also showed high levels of CO2.

We took the car to the service centre, and after a few days they said there was nothing wrong. We asked for a pollution check to be done, and they said they would get a pollution check certificate. At which point my wife lost her temper, and said, "Will you get us a certificate, or will it pass the pollution check? Because if I take the car to a pollution check centre and find I am driving a polluting vehicle, we will hold you liable." At this point the service centre checked again, and called up "technical experts", who asked if they could open up the engine - which is a huge intervention.

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Another week later, they said that they would have to change the engine head, but because they were feeling so generous, they would only charge us a third of the cost, a lakh.

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This problem lies at the heart of the energy transformation that is happening in the world.

I had been overseas while much of this was happening, over a month after that first pollution check. I came back to town and went to the workshop, and asked them to explain. The manager there told me an interesting story. He said that this was not our fault or theirs, that this type of thing happened once in a while because of water being mixed with diesel in India, and it led to carbon deposits in the valves in the cylinder heads. This led to leakage of gasses, thus the pollution check failure. I told him the car was a petrol one, at which point he said, in a surprised tone, "I've never heard this happen in a petrol car."

Let us leave that aside. Maybe the servicing workshop is merely incompetent.

What the manager was telling me was something far more important. He was saying that Skoda, and Volkswagen (the engines are made by them) knew of a problem affecting some of their cars due to adulterated fuel. In response, they had not chosen to confront the issue, and instead merely passed on the problem to customers like us.

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Possibly they gambled that pollution checks are not done that often, and if they do fail, people are satisfied with a fake pollution check certificate. In case somebody, like my wife, refused to drive a polluting vehicle, we were handed a very large bill to change a part that they knew had a small but sure likelihood of failing.

What does this mean? Is it just that Skoda, and its parent company, Volkswagen, is unethical? Volkswagen just paid $15 billion in fines in the US for building cars that would bypass emissions tests so that they could cheat pollution checks. But that is too simple an answer.

German companies - including Volkswagen - have built their reputations on good products, not on cheating. Cheaters always get caught, and that is bad for reputations. The problem is different. It is that such companies see places like India merely as a market for short-term gains. They are here to simply sell their goods, not change the system for good.

If they see a problem - as they see one in adulterated fuel in India - they do not lobby the government to change the problem, highlighting the risks. They do not change the designs of their engines to deal with the problem. Instead, they stay quiet, sell us the goods, and charge us more when they malfunction.

This problem lies at the heart of the energy transformation that is happening in the world. The developed countries have built systems and laws that they are able to enforce in their own countries after decades, even centuries of heavy pollution.

Strangely, developed countries want the developing countries to abide by these laws, but are not willing to help the latter develop effective administrative framework.

In the meanwhile, companies like Volkswagen mint money by selling us products which are bound to fail in conditions that prevail in countries like India.

We already create enough pollution of our own, but it seems that isn't enough, we also get pollution, made in Germany.

Last updated: July 02, 2016 | 21:51
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